Partner to Partner

To increase social comfort and develop listening skills.

Warm-up with some basic stretches and a bit of cardio.
Circle students.
Review rules and boundaries.
Review different body parts. For instance: elbow, knees, toes, pinky, thumb, etc.

Gym or classroom. If in a classroom, push tables and chairs back.

One player is chosen to stand in the center; everybody else partners up and stands in the circle with their partners next to them so they and their partners are next to each other.
Player in the middle calls out commands such as “elbow to elbow,” “back to back,” “knee to knee”. Players take these positions accordingly.
When the person in the middle calls “partner to partner”, all the players have to find a new partner while the person in the middle tries to get a partner.
If they are successful the person left without a partner becomes the new person in the middle and starts to give commands.

Instead of having players just switch body parts; you can have them keep everything connected. For example; if you say, ‘hand to hand,’ and then toe to toe, they would have their hands and toes connected at the same time. If you then added elbow to elbow, they’d have all three body parts connected.
Turn this game into a tag game by calling out a body part (i.e. Shoulder, elbow, toe, knee, etc.) and their job is to tag their partner on that spot before their partner tags them.
- Be sure to review safe tagging.
- 1st person to be tagged must perform a task to get back into the game (i.e. jumping jacks, push-ups, etc.)